SECRET

SECRET is a lightweight application with a very suggestive name. It is designed to help you encrypt data on your computer without too much hassle, keeping all the important information a secret.

It features no standard GUI and it can be used via the command console in Windows. While beginners might be a bit reluctant to using an application without a regular interface, we must say that the syntax of SECRET is quite simple and poses no difficulty. In fact, there are just two available options you can try: encrypt and decrypt. Needless to say what they do but note that you must specify whether the path you specify as the target holds a file or a directory by using either “-f” or “-d” as an argument.

SECRET can encrypt individual files of your choice but you can also use it to perform batch encryption to the entire content of a folder. In other words, you only have to specify a directory’s location and all the files inside it will be processed, regardless of their type and size.

By default, the encryption is not recursive, an option that you can customize with ease, meaning it is possible to instruct SECRET to go through all the subdirectories and encrypt everything it finds, file by file.

The default configuration of SECRET is to preserve the original files and save the encrypted content in the same location, appending the “.secret” extension to the latter. You can also opt to automatically delete the originals, if you prefer it that way. It is advisable you don’t use the “-delete” flag before testing the application.

Decrypting a file you previously encrypted using SECRET works exactly the same, only that you must use the “-decrypt” flag. To unlock the access to the original content, you must enter the password you set during encryption. It is also possible to perform batch decryptions on a large number of files.

While those who are looking for a standard encryption utility might not opt for a console application, SECRET is a handy software tool to have around if you want to create encryption-related scripts or automation software. To put it another way, while it is not perfect for end users, it is surely useful for developers and tech-savvy individuals.